


Wild World

by fireflysglow_archivist



Category: Firefly
Genre: Het, Slash, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-08-09
Updated: 2004-08-09
Packaged: 2019-04-29 07:02:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14467473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireflysglow_archivist/pseuds/fireflysglow_archivist
Summary: Wandering eyes, broken hearts, and inappropriate object choices





	Wild World

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Firefly’s Glow](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Firefly%27s_Glow), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Firefly's Glow collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/fireflysglow/profile).

Wild World

## Wild World

1\.   
River is a devotee of devotion, a worshiper of worship, but like Goldilocks she wants it to be just right. Simon's devotion stifles her, the rocks piled on a wizard's chest to secure a confession. 

She looks at Wash's love for Zoe and loves that, it looks perfect to her but she can't open the package because the rush of air would make it evaporate. 

2.  
Wash tries not to meet Book's eyes, because he's afraid that he has some kind of Shepherding training that can detect Looking at a Woman Not His Wife With Lust in His Heart, which he sort of remembers is supposed to be just as bad as Actually Doing It. Wash hates the thought of going back on his pledged word, but he just doesn't know how long he can go without getting up next to someone who's all soft and pretty and less masculine than he is and would actually fall for his Man of the World act, which he's pretty sure would go a lot farther with Kaylee than with Simon. 

3.  
All the cover they gave him was a line or two of code in Southdown Abbey's server that might survive a casual inquiry, an identity of Book-no-first-name-no-middle-initial, and a Get Out of Jail Free card. Maybe it's the minimal, shoji-screen quality that has kept it intact this long. Rice paper, after all, is tough. He tries to think of himself as Book. 

He spends far too much time with Inara, and he worries because he knows not to try to play a player. If she hasn't figured it out, she will. Perhaps he can make his play, because even the man he's pretending to be could fall to such opulent temptation. But if he holds back his play, he won't have to find out which of them she's rejecting. 

4.  
Whenever Mal gives her one of those melting long looks, Inara gives him one back, and that satisfies him and he moves on. Holding a reflector up to a Mal, or maybe even a man, she concludes, is like holding up a crucifix in front of a vampire in terms of the blessed although temporary respite it provides. 

Whenever Zoe gives Inara one of her curt though not unfriendly nods, Inara retreats. As far as Inara can tell, Zoe doesn't take a profound interest in probing the motivations of others, beyond a simple determination of whether they're going to need shooting right now or possibly a turn or two down the road. 

Retreating allows Inara to reconfigure Zoe to her liking, with dogtags her only jewelry, her arms bare in a ribbed undershirt, a tight bra that makes her breasts both irrelevant and tempting, dozens of eyelets laced up on her boots. This Zoe's lips are slick, but it's not lipstick. But this Zoe doesn't have ripples and waves of long hair, to Inara that's the proud badge of the femme. The hair of the handsome butch she needs Zoe to be is cropped right down to display the architecture of her skull 

5.  
The first thing Mal notices, (Kaylee got on the Comm to tell him to come to the Engine Room and he went) is the sunflower. A huge yellow sunflower, with a black center, with a long stem clamped between her teeth. Paper, of course,. It's been too long a while since they were anywhere where there were flowers, for a real flower still to be alive. And she has a couple of bright pink paper flowers in her hair. 

And she doesn't have anything else on, which it occurs to him a split-second later he should probably have noticed first. She starts to dance, a kind of sailor's hornpipe, not much of a dance but even with the limited choreography he knows River would have been able to make something of it. 

"Hey, Mal," she says, now holding the sunflower in her hand. "I got to wonderin' if you'd notice me if I danced nekkid right in front of your eyes. Decided to find out." 

"Kaylee!" he says. "Little Kaylee!" He looks around for something to cover her up with, but there isn't anything except a couple of pillows on the hammock (not even the blanket that's still kept in the bridge). He drops down his suspenders and yanks his shirt off in a hurry, but when he hands it to her she just grins bigger and dumps it on the floor. "Kaylee, this ain't right...I don't think of you'n'me that way. You're just a kid." 

Kaylee's hands are on her waist--which exists, a graceful indentation between hips that also exist, and breasts, one of which she moves her hand to and touches and the nipple springs up. "I'm all grown up, Mal," she says. "Ain't been a virgin for a long time. You know that...hell, you got yourself quite an eyeful right here." 

She knows it's all gone bad already, because Mal doesn't grab her or give a sweet reminiscent laugh or even tell her that him and Jayne are getting hitched as soon as a few legal technicalities get ironed out. She can see the beaten hunch in his shoulders, and she knows that it's all gone even worse than she thought. She didn't have a back-up plan and now she doesn't expect a rescuer to come through the ceiling for her. "I'm all grown up. But I know someone around here ain't." 

Mal's glad that his face doesn't go crying behind his back and shaming him. "At least I don't dream about talkin' in the theater," he says, throwing the words over his shoulder from the doorway. "Keep the shirt." 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title:   **Wild World**   
Author:   **Executrix**   
Details:   **Standalone**  |  **PG-13**  |  **het *slash***  |  **4k**  |  **08/09/04**   
Characters:  Malcolm, Kaylee, River   
Pairings:  Universal UST   
Summary:  Wandering eyes, broken hearts, and inappropriate object choices   
  



End file.
